This wave of growth is impacting how existing cities are expanding and new cities are being built, by design and by accident. To address this growth, the government is planning to build new cities, both next to existing ones and at ‘greenfield’ locations, as growth in existing megacities is spilling over to their suburbs and the inherent deficiencies in planning, or the lack of it, are choking them.

In the US, such real-estate developments have been christened ‘Boomburbs’, and have come to signify large, fast growing areas which, while not originally planned as cities, attain the scale and vibrancy of a city.

Cupertino, the location of the headquarters of Apple in the US, is seen as an emerging Boomburb. These accidental cities may actually be on a path that will mirror the growth trajectory of older, more established places. Traditionally cities grew from central, densely populated urban cores and gradually grew outward. Boomburbs, in contrast, started off as large, spread-out, low-density spaces that are now beginning to develop higher-density centres.

Boomburbs have emerged in the wake of higher cost of living, congestion and lack of open spaces in cities, literally pushing any new development on the fringes of city-limits. A Boomburb typically comprises people in their mid 30s to mid 40s, who are married with children and have a university education and a successful career.

Identification and acknowledgement of Boomburbs are essential from the perspective of providing appropriate ecosystem for their growth. In the Indian context, numerous suburbs have confidently grown out of the shadows of existing centres such as Gurgaon and Noida next to Delhi; and Thane and Navi Mumbai next to Mumbai. These centres, in fact, are driving the growth of manufacturing and services in the Indian economy.

Gurgaon is an apt example of how a laid back village got placed on the global map. It has almost doubled its population base in the decade of 2001 & 2011. Gurgaon now has the third highest per capita income in India, after Chandigarh and Mumbai.

Indeed, a recent under-construction apartment of 1,975 sq ft in Gurgaon sold for Rs 1.88 crore, nearly half-a-million US dollars.

It gives a clear picture of increasing aspiration and rapidly changing real estate markets in urban India. Similarly, Thane has seen its population grow by an average 32 per cent in the decades from 1981 to 2011.

In a true Indian context, the term Boomburbs can be generalised to include individual cities and not just cities emerging from suburbs, as it would represent more completely India’s growth. There are 45 Indian urban agglomerations, besides the traditional four metros, that have more than a million people now. These are the cities, which have shown a higher pace of growth in the last three decades than the national average of about 20 per cent average decadal growth between 1981 and 2011.

Furthermore, there is almost three times this number of cities such as Dehradun, which are not million plus in population but fit the definition of Boomburbs, looking at their growth.

With an increasing presence of our very own boomtowns, a coherent framework for their development becomes quintessential. By 2050 new megacities would have evolved from the very Boomburbs we are witnessing today and a new set of would flourish. The impact of such demanding growth has been critically felt on infrastructure and the housing needs over the years.

The National Housing Board (NHB) estimates current housing shortage of 25 million units, in both rural and urban areas. State governments are taking measures to fill the paucity of housing and supporting infrastructure. This is an ideal opportunity for private sector participation. Unless there is a true alignment of social and business objectives this gap shall not be overcome effectively.

What triggered notice of Boomburbs in the US was San Francisco’s Baseball World Series loss to a team from a little known suburb ‘Anaheim’.

Back home it might take a while before a cricket team from Gurgaon or Mohali can trounce a giant of Mumbai or Delhi, though the former have already scored a six on the growth front.